play pretend
by Emmel1118
Summary: He was her husband. Hers. - character study of Cara, oneshot


_play pretend_

 _and I've been a fool and I've been blind,_

 _I can never leave the past behind_

shake it out, florence + the machine

* * *

He's her husband - maddening, inscrutable, frustrating but her husband none the less; for better or worse.

But now, as she fakes her thousandth smile, putting up her facade yet again to hide the tears that threaten to overwhelm her every moment she's alone with her thoughts, she wonders about him, and her marriage.

Because he might be her husband but she's not sure she knows him anymore.

...

She met him when she was sixteen, nearly seventeen. He was older, cutting a dashing figure in police blue. She can remember exactly how they met, down to every last detail. It's burned into her memory and it won't fade, despite how much it now hurts to revisit it.

He came into her school along with a more senior colleague, whose face has been lost by the blur of passing time, to do a presentation about community policing or something.

She caught his eye. She thought she was too young for a guy like him; all charm and laidback sophistication, suave and debonair - that he'd never look twice at her. But he did, and when the assembly was over he came over to her group of friends - all who fancied him too - but he only had eyes for her.

He didn't ask her out then, no, not with all the teachers and his colleague watching, but later they bumped into each other in town. He wasn't as old as she thought - only three or four years older than her - and she couldn't resist saying yes when he asked her out for a drink.

And it all went from there.

...

She thought it would be a fling. She thought it was just a bit of fun. She thought he'd soon get tired of a school girl and leave her behind.

But he was kinder than she anticipated, and his smile made her smile too and his eyes made her feel safe.

Held in his embrace, she thought that maybe - maybe he might be the man for her, because she felt like she loved him more than anything.

...

And he was. He was her first proper boyfriend. The first man she introduced to her parents. The first man she moved in with. The first man she swapped 'I love you's' in the middle of night with.

The man she loved, the man she married.

...

Then everything turned to shit.

...

It's a Friday, the day everything falls apart.

She should have known her fairytale man with the kind eyes who made her feel safe would turn out to be just an ordinary cheater like so many men before him.

And she flushes with anger because she doesn't want to be the woman wronged, the broken-hearted wife left behind because her husband looked else where.

But she is, and because she loved him really, properly, actually - with her whole heart and not just some play pretend sham of a perfect marriage - it hurts.

It _fucking_ hurts.

Because there's a woman out there who's not her who's having her husband's baby.

...

She's angry.

So utterly angry in a way she's never been before.

Because he was her husband. _Hers_.

(and maybe her perfect marriage was a sham after all)

He threw away a decade with her for a leg over with some woman whom he doesn't seem to give a damn about.

That makes it hurt even more, she thinks - that he doesn't seem to care about her, about the woman he cheated on his wife with.

That and he never says sorry, as if he's only upset because he got caught, not because he did it in the first place.

She wonders if she's the first or if she's the last in a list of many.

She doesn't know what would be better.

...

Sometimes, when he's just there in front of her, his eyes glistening with unshed tears, she can see the ghost of the man she first met all those years ago.

The kind eyes bleed through, even now, even after everything.

And she's so overwhelmed by a longing for him, for who he was - because he is her husband, the man she loves more than anything in the world.

...

The worst thing is no one knows. His fucking job sees to that.

So her colleagues still think her husband is on a rig in the middle of an ocean, and that they're still happy and perfect.

(except Raf of course, because she couldn't keep it all inside, no matter how much she tried - but he doesn't know the man waking their ward is her cheater of a husband and that kills her every time she has to say he's nothing to her)

...

She takes a shot of tequila and wonders if she should sleep with Raf. She wasn't lying when she told her husband there had been offers, men who'd near enough thrown themselves at her. Raf had tried his luck, before he knew she was taken, so she knows he's interested.

But she'd be using him - wouldn't she? It wouldn't be because she liked him (though she could admit he wasn't hard on the eyes and he looked out for her and was nice to her) It would be to hurt her husband, pure and simple.

He could be anyone, a stranger would do for her purpose - simply because he wouldn't be Jed.

Jed with his kind eyes and gentle face that lingered in the memories that still haunt her even when tequila has blitzed most of them away.

She drinks more tequila than she knows she can handle and then she kisses sweet, nice Raf and instantly she knows she can't do it.

Because when it comes down to it, she's not like Jed and she can't do it. She can remember her vows, her wedding day - can remember just how much, damn it all, she still loves him.

She bolts instead, into the cold night and slumps on the pavement in the midnight air. She cries then, her knees drawn up to her chest - wracking sobs that shake her fragile frame.

Raf's just stood back and watched as she tried to drink away the pain, drink herself into oblivion, all night. He didn't try to stop her and its when he slips beside her outside the bar and drapes his coat over her shoulders, that she knows why.

She sees the confirmation in his eyes as the seconds tick out.

He's been in her position - and he gets why she's pouring down the booze like its water, because he knows how it feels to have your heart broken so completely, so comprehensively by someone you trusted with unflinching loyalty.

Suddenly, she understands Raf's words the other day - after she'd told him about her husband being a cheater; the way he'd tried to empathise with herbut she hadn't understood, not then, but now she does.

He's had his heart broken too.

...

She wonders if she'll ever feel whole again.

Jed stole something from her and she's broken without it.

He's taken away her safe haven, her port in a storm. He was once everything she needed and now he's everything she doesn't.

He's crying in the ladies over broken hearts and he's sorting through possessions that weren't supposed to be separated and he's staring into space in the middle of shifts because she's remembering fragments of a past where her heart wasn't in a thousand pieces.

...

She fakes a smile, forces a laugh.

Soon she'll be a professional at it.

There's a front there now, put there because a man with kind eyes betrayed her when she believed in him.

...


End file.
